PAKISTAN: Threats against Ahmadiyya Community on the Rise

Vienna/Islamabad, 03.02.2018 (FOREF) – With great concern FOREF Europe has been observing the increasing rate of violations against fundamental freedoms in Pakistan. Threats against religious freedom have sparked accross the country. The Ahmadiyya community is one among several religious minorities that are seriously affected by this trend. Today, FOREF Europe sent an open letter to the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan and to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

OPEN LETTER

Dear Honorable Mr. Khawaja Muhammad Asif,

I am writing on behalf of the Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe, an independent, secular human rights organization based in Vienna, Austria.

We are deeply concerned about escalating threats to the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan. There can be no doubt that such threats are becoming more serious, making it increasingly dangerous and difficult for members of that community to profess their faith.

Especially over the past year, numerous religious leaders in your country have openly called for violence against Ahmadis, indeed, calling for their murder by decapitation.

Death threats against Ahmadis have become commonplace. These are some of the incidents that have alarmed our organization, and the international community:

NGOs Condemn Persecution against the Church of Almighty God

Joint Statement

Thousands of members of the Church of Almighty God (CAG) have been incarcerated in China, following a further crackdown on unauthorized religious organizations. According to the rough statistics, more than 300,000 members of CAG were incarcerated and detained in China from the beginning of the persecutions in the 1990s to 2017. Many have been tortured and at least 30 died in custody in suspicious circumstances, according to a report just released by CAG and published by several human rights organizations internationally (see e.g. here).

In the last few days, we have seen unprecedented media attacks against CAG published simultaneously in Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, which seem to be an answer to the publication of this report.

The Church of Almighty God (CAG) is a new religious movement founded in China in 1991. It teaches that Jesus has returned to the Earth and incarnated as the Almighty God in a living person and is with us today. It also claims that prophecies in the Bible predict the fall of the Chinese Communist regime in China, although it does not advocate any form of armed rebellion.

The side event will reflect on the challenges facing religious communnities in Pakistan. The country’s draconian anti-Ahmadi laws and Blasphemy laws have been used by the state to persecute religious communities for more than 40 years. Thousands have been charged under these laws, with many hundreds murdered and many more are languishing in prison. The laws have fed the rise of extremism in Pakistan and also deny Ahmadi Muslims their fundamental democratic right to vote.

The international panel of experts will discuss these issues and highlight what steps can be taken by Pakistan, civil society and international actors to ensure Pakistan effectively implements the UPR recommendations and its wider human rights obligations. We invite you to join this timely discussion and we look forward to your participation.

Human Rights Without Frontiers, along with the Forum for Religious Freedom – Europe, takes this opportunity to raise once again what is arguably the most flagrant assault on religious freedom to occur in the Euro-Atlantic region since the end of the Soviet Union and its satellite communist regimes in Eastern Europe – namely, the Russian Federation’s illegal ban on the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

As we meet here today, Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are charged with membership in an “extremist” organization, are being prosecuted for no other crime than their religious faith.

The ban was confirmed by the Russian Supreme Court on the 20th of April 2017. The law makes it a crime for about 170,000 Russian citizens to practice their faith. The denomination has faced increasing persecution in Russia for decades. Indeed, we have warned about the growing persecution of members of this group in Russia for 13 years.

Dennis Christensen, a Danish citizen, was arrested for attending a religious meeting of Jehovah’s Witness and was sentenced to a 2-month pretrial detention that has been extended until 23 November. Russia is thus incarcerating a prisoner of conscience in this case.

The Need of a Shared Understanding of Freedom in the OSCE Region

Austrian Chairmanship 2017

By HRWF/FOREF Europe

Vienna, 23.06.2017 (HRWF/FOREF) – The Austrian OSCE Chairmanship and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights hosted a Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting (SHDM) on the 22nd and 23rd of June in the spacious halls of the Hofburg, the former imperial palace in the inner city of Vienna. This SHDM’s theme was Freedom of Religion or Belief for All and was aimed at discussing the opportunities and challenges in confronting intolerance and discrimination against Jews, Christians, Muslims and members of other faith communities. As the contributions to the SHDM have shown, notions of what FoRB means and how basic freedoms form a normative basis for government policies are becoming increasingly blurred in the OSCE region. Restrictive government policies tend to prioritize concepts of security over the individual and collective right to religious freedom with impunity. The lack of a shared understanding of freedom in the region makes it even easier for authoritarian governments to compromise on fundamental human rights.

In his introductory remarks to one session of the meeting, Ambassador Jean-Christophe Peaucelle, the Advisor for Religious Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, stated: “France is not hostile to religion. France is committed to non-segmented freedom of religion and belief, and ensures the protection of universal and indivisible human rights.” He underlined that the French version of secularism does not view religion negatively, but takes a neutral stance on religion. Continue reading →

Vienna, 23 June 2017 – The Russian Federation’s ban on the Jehovah’s Witnesses is arguably the most flagrant assault on religious freedom to occur in the Euro-Atlantic region since the end of the Soviet Union and its satellite communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

The ban was confirmed by the Russian Supreme Court on the 20th of April. The ban makes it a crime for about 170,000 Russian citizens to practice their faith. The denomination has faced increasing persecution in Russia for decades. Recently, Dennis Christensen, a Danish citizen, has been arrested for attending a religious meeting of Jehovah’s Witness and was sentenced to a 2-month pretrial detention. Russia has thus started to incarcerate prisoners of conscience.
Yet this unprecedented restriction on the fundamental human right to freedom of religion, a right the Russian Federation is legally and politically committed to protect, has been met with only limited and muted criticism, and more often than not, by silence indicating indifference.

DANISH CITIZEN FACES UP TO 10 YEARS IN PRISON AFTER BIBLE READING

International reaction has not been consistent with the gravity of this massive violation of human rights, and compels us to ask, why not?
What would have happened had the Russian Federation banned the Catholic Church, or the practice of Judaism or Islam?

The weak reaction to the ban on the Jehovah’s Witnesses reflects enduring prejudice against minority religions, and what are categorized as “sects.” Indeed, it reflects the same ignorance and condescension that motivated Russian authorities, at the behest of the Russian Orthodox Church, to outlaw the group.

Our organizations applaud numerous activists, experts, international officials, and governments, and the few human rights organizations, which have voiced their objections.
But not enough have done so. The issue has not been afforded the importance it deserves, but has largely remained underreported. We can only conclude that weak international criticism and action to counter this assault on freedom of religion will be taken as a “green light” for further legal discrimination against religious communities not only in Russia, but in other states where authoritarian regimes seek to impose cultural and spiritual harmony upon their citizens.

We are thus calling on the participating States of the OSCE to raise your voices against the ban on the Jehovah’s Witnesses by the Russian Federation. Without exaggeration, the future of religious freedom in the region depends on it.